​UK Chancellor Osborne attacks ‘anti-free-market movement’

For the first time since before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Labour Party policies and trade unions are threatening Britain’s future as a pro-business, free-market economy, Chancellor George Osborne told business leaders on Friday.

Seven months ahead of
the UK’s general election, Osborne said Britain is facing a stark
choice between a Conservative government that supports
businesses, or a Labour government that would pose a threat to
the wealth-friendly environment build by the Tory-Liberal
Democrat coalition.

Osborne criticized trade unions and charities in his speech.
“You have to get out there and put the business
argument,” he told the audience at London’s Royal Albert
Hall. “Because there are plenty of pressure groups, plenty of
trade unions and plenty of charities and the like that will put
the counter view.”

“It is, I know, a difficult decision sometimes to put your
head above the parapet, but that is the only way we are going to
win this argument for an enterprising, business, low-tax economy
that delivers prosperity for the people and generations to
come,” he added.

On Friday, Germany’s Reunification Day, Osborne said the idea
that political parties put national economic interest before
opportunist advantage is now “up for grabs” for the
first time since 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and East and
West Germany reunited.

“There is a big argument in our country...about whether we
are a country that is for business, for enterprise, for the free
market. For the first time in my adult life that is up for
grabs,” Osborne told business leaders at the Institute of
Directors annual convention in London.

Speaking about the country’s economic recovery, Osborne said:
“The fastest growing areas of economic activity in our
country right now are the North West of England, the North East
and Yorkshire.” He added that Britons are beginning to feel
the benefits of returning prosperity.

The chancellor also stated that the weakness in the eurozone is
“probably the greatest immediate economic risk” to the
UK, and urged businesses to look elsewhere, to areas like Asia
and South America. Some 40 percent of Britain’s exports go to the
eurozone.

“Too many of our small and middle-sized businesses have felt
daunted about entering into export markets. That's not the case
for small and medium-sized companies for example in
Germany,” he said.

His comments come as the government braces for a wave of national
public sector strikes this month by civil servants, council
workers, and NHS staff. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is
coordinating a national demonstration under the slogan
“Britain Needs a Pay Rise,” set to take place October
18.